Chapter 20

I'll show thee the best springs; I'll pluck thee berries.

_Tempest._

The day dawned clear and cloudless on the Leman, the morning thatsucceeded the Abbaye des Vignerons. Hundreds among the frugal andtime-saving Swiss had left the town before the appearance of the light,and many strangers were crowding into the barks, as the sun came brightand cheerfully over the rounded and smiling summits of the neighboringcôtes. At this early hour, all in and around the rock-seated castle ofBlonay were astir, and in motion. Menials were running, with hurried air,from room to room, from court to terrace and from lawn to tower. Thepeasants in the adjoining fields rested on their utensils of husbandry, ingaping, admiring attention to the preparations of their superiors. Forthough we are not writing of a strictly feudal age, the events it is ourbusiness to record took place long before the occurrence of those greatpolitical events, which have since so materially changed the social stateof Europe. Switzerland was then a sealed country to most of those whodwelt even in the adjoining nations, and the present advanced condition ofroads and inns was quite unknown, not only to these mountaineers, butthroughout the rest of what was then much more properly called theexclusively civilized portion of the globe, than it is to-day. Even horseswere not often used in the passage of the Alps, but recourse was had tothe surer-footed mule by the traveller, and, not unfrequently, by the morepractised carrier and smuggler of those rude paths. Roads existed, it istrue, as in other parts of Europe, in the countries of the plain, if anyportion of the great undulating surface of that region deserve the name;but once within the mountains, with the exception of very inartificialwheel-tracks in the straitened and glen-like valleys, the hoof alone wasto be trusted or indeed used.

The long train of travellers, then, that left the gates of Blonay just asthe fog began to stir on the wide alluvial meadows of the Rhone, were allin the saddle. A courier, accompanied by a sumpter-mule, had departedover-night to prepare the way for those who were to follow, and activeyoung mountaineers had succeeded, from time to time, charged withdifferent orders, issued in behalf of their comforts.

As the cavalcade passed beneath the arch of the great gate, the lively,spirit-stirring horn sounded a fare well air, to which custom had attachedthe signification of good wishes. It took the way towards the level of theLeman by means of a winding and picturesque bridle-path that led, amongalpine meadows, groves, rocks, and hamlets, fairly to the water-side.Roger de Blonay and his two principal guests rode in front, the formerseated on a war-horse that he had ridden years before as a soldier, andthe two latter well mounted on beasts prepared for, and accustomed to, themountains. Adelheid and Christine came next, riding by themselves, in themodest reserve of their maiden condition. Their discourse was low,confidential, and renewed at intervals. A few menials followed, and thencame Sigismund at the side of the Signor Grimald's friend, and one of thefamily of Blonay, the latter of whom was destined to return with thebaron, after doing honor to their guests by seeing them as far asVilleneuve The rear was brought up by muleteers, domestics, and those wholed the beasts that bore the baggage. All of the former who intended tocross the Alps carried the fire-arms of the period at their saddle-bows,and each had his rapier, his _couteau de chasse_, or his weapon of moremilitary fashion, so disposed about his person as to denote it wasconsidered an arm for whose use some occasion might possibly occur.

As the departure from Blonay was unaccompanied by any of thoseleave-takings which usually impress a touch of melancholy on thetraveller, most of the cavalcade, as they issued into the pure andexhilarating air of the morning, were sufficiently disposed to enjoy theloveliness of the landscape, and to indulge in the cheerfulness anddelight that a scene so glorious is apt to awaken, in all who are alive tothe beauties of nature.

Adelheid gladly pointed out to her companion the various objects of theview, as a means of recalling the thoughts of Christine from her ownparticular griefs, which were heightened by regret for the loss of hermother, from whom she was now seriously separated for the first time inher life, since their communications, though secret, had been constantduring the years she had dwelt under another roof. The latter gratefullylent herself to the kind intentions of her new friend, and endeavored tobe pleased with all she beheld, though it was such pleasure as the sadand mourning admit with a jealous reservation of their own secret causesof woe.

"Yonder tower, towards which we advance, is Châtelard," said the heiressof Willading to the daughter of Balthazar, in the pursuit of her kindintention; "a hold, nearly as ancient and honorable as this we have justquitted, though not so constantly the dwelling of the same family; forthese of Blonay have been a thousand years dwellers on the same rock,always favorably known for their faith and courage."

"Surely, if there is anything in life that can compensate for itsevery-day evils," observed Christine, in a manner of mild regret andperhaps with the perversity of grief, "it must be to have come from thosewho have always been known and honored among the great and happy! Evenvirtue and goodness, and great deeds, scarce give a respect like that wefeel for the Sire de Blonay, whose family has been seated, as thou hastjust said, a thousand years on that rock above us!"

Adelheid was mute. She appreciated the feeling which had so naturally ledher companion to a reflection like this, and she felt the difficulty ofapplying balm to a wound as deep as that which had been inflicted on hercompanion.

"We are not always to suppose those the most happy that the world mosthonors," she at length answered; "the respect to which we are accustomedcomes in time to be necessary, without being a source of pleasure; and thehazard of incurring its loss is more than equal to the satisfaction of itspossession."

"Thou wilt at least admit that to be despised and shunned is a curse towhich nothing can reconcile us."

"We will speak now of other things, dear. It may be long ere either of usagain sees this grand display of rock and water, of brown mountain andshining glacier; we will not prove ourselves ungrateful for the happinesswe have, by repining for that which is impossible."

Christine quietly yielded to the kind intention of her new friend, andthey rode on in silence, picking their way along the winding path, untilthe whole party, after a long but pleasant descent, reached the road,which is nearly washed by the waters of the lake. There has already beenallusion, in the earlier pages of our work, to the extraordinary beautiesof the route near this extremity of the Leman. After climbing to the heighof the mild and healthful Montreux, the cavalcade again descended, under acanopy of nut-trees, to the gate of Chillon, and, sweeping around themargin of the sheet, it reached Villeneuve by the hour that had been namedfor an early morning repast. Here all dismounted, and refreshed themselvesawhile, when Roger de Blonay and his attendants, after many exchanges ofwarm and sincere good wishes, took their final leave.

The sun was scarcely yet visible in the deep glens, when those who weredestined for St. Bernard were again in the saddle. The road nownecessarily left the lake, traversing those broad alluvial bottoms whichhave been deposited during thirty centuries by the washings of the Rhone,aided, if faith is to be given to geological symptoms and to ancienttraditions, by certain violent convulsions of nature. For several hoursour travellers rode amid such a deep fertility, and such a luxuriance ofvegetation, that their path bore more analogy to an excursion on the wideplains of Lombardy, than to one amid the usual Swiss scenery; although,unlike the boundless expanse of the Italian garden, the view was limitedon each side by perpendicular barriers of rock, that were piled forthousands of feet into the heavens, and which were merely separated fromeach other by a league or two, a distance that dwindled to miles in itseffect on the eye, a consequence of the grandeur of the scale on whichnature has reared these vast piles.

It was high-noon when Melchior de Willading and his venerable friend ledthe way across the foaming Rhone, at the celebrated bridge of St Maurice.Here the country of the Valais, then like Geneva, an ally, and not aconfederate of the Swiss cantons, was entered, and all objects, bothanimate and inanimate, began to assume that mixture of the grand, thesterile, the luxuriant, and the revolting, for which this region is sogenerally known. Adelheid gave an involuntary shudder, her imaginationhaving been prepared by rumor for even more than the truth would havegiven reason to expect, when the gate of St. Maurice swung back upon itshinges, literally inclosing the party in this wild, desolate, and yetromantic region. As they proceeded along the Rhone, however, she andthose of her companions to whom the scene was new, were constantlywondering at some unlooked-for discrepancy, that drove them fromadmiration to disgust--from the exclamations of delight to the chill ofdisappointment. The mountains on every side were dreary, and without therich relief of the pastured eminences, but most of the valley was rich andgenerous. In one spot a sac d'eau, one of those reservoirs of water whichform among the glaciers on the summits of the rocks, had broken, and,descending like a water-spout, it had swept before it every vestige ofcultivation, covering wide breadths of the meadows with a débris thatresembled chaos. A frightful barrenness, and the most smiling fertility,were in absolute contact: patches of green, that had been accidentallyfavored by some lucky formation of the ground, sometimes appearing likeoases of the desert, in the very centre of a sterility that would put thelabor and the art of man at defiance for a century. In the midst of thisterrific picture of want sat a crétin, with his semi-human attributes, thelolling tongue, the blunted faculties, and the degraded appetites, tocomplete the desolation. Issuing from this belt of annihilated vegetation,the scene became again as pleasant as the fancy could desire, or the eyecrave. Fountains leaped from rock to rock in the sun's rays; the valleywas green and gentle; the mountains began to show varied and pleasingforms; and happy smiling faces appeared, whose freshness and regularitywere perhaps of a cast superior to that of most of the Swiss. In short,the Valais was then; as now, a country of opposite extremes, but in which,perhaps, there is a predominance of the repulsive and inhospitable.

It was fairly nightfall, notwithstanding the trifling distance they hadjourneyed, when the travellers reached Martigny, where dispositions hadpreviously been made for their reception during the hours of sleep. Herepreparations were made to seek their rest at an early hour, in order to bein readiness for the fatiguing toil of the following day.

Martigny is situated at the point where the great valley of the Rhonechanges its direction from a north and south to an east and west course,and it is the spot whence three of the celebrated mountain paths diverge,to make as many passages of the upper Alps. Here are the two routes of thegreat and little St. Bernard, both of which lead into Italy, and that ofthe Col-de-Balme, which crosses a spur of the Alps into Savoy toward thecelebrated valley of Chamouni. It was the intention of the Baron deWillading and his friend to journey by the former of these roads, as hasso often been mentioned in these pages, their destination being thecapital of Piedmont. The passage of the great St. Bernard, though so longknown by its ancient and hospitable convent, the most elevated habitationin Europe, and in these later times so famous for the passage of aconquering army is but a secondary alpine pass, considered in reference tothe grandeur of its scenery. The ascent, so inartificial even to thishour, is loner and comparatively without danger, and in general it issufficiently direct, there being no very precipitous rise like those ofthe Gemmi, the Grimsel, and various other passes in Switzerland and Italy,except at the very neck, or col, of the mountain, where the rock is to beliterally climbed on the rude and broad steps that so frequently occuramong the paths of the Alps and the Apennines. The fatigue of this passagecomes, therefore, rather from its length, and the necessity of unremitteddiligence, than from any excessive labor demanded by the ascent; and thereputation acquired by the great captain of our age, in leading an armyacross its summit, has been obtained more by the military combinations ofwhich it formed the principal feature, the boldness of the conception, andthe secrecy and promptitude with which so extensive an operation waseffected, than by the physical difficulties that were overcome. In thelatter particular, the passage of St. Bernard, as this celebratedcoup-de-main is usually called, has frequently been outdone in our ownwilds; for armies have often traversed regions of broad streams, brokenmountains, and uninterrupted forests, for weeks at a time, in which themere bodily labor of any given number of days would be found to be greaterthan that endured on this occasion by the followers of Napoleon. Theestimate we attach to every exploit is so dependent on the magnitude ofits results, that men rarely come to a perfectly impartial judgment on itsmerits; the victory or defeat, however simple or bloodless, that shallshake or assure the interests of civilized society, being always esteemedby the world an event of greater importance, than the happiestcombinations of thought and valor that affect only the welfare of someremote and unknown people. By the just consideration of this truth, wecome to understand the value of a nation's possessing confidence initself, extensive power, and a unity commensurate to its means; sincesmall and divided states waste their strength in acts too insignificantfor general interest, frittering away their mental riches, no less thantheir treasure and blood, in supporting interests that fail to enlist thesympathies of any beyond the pale of their own borders. The nation which,by the adverse circumstances of numerical inferiority, poverty of means,failure of enterprise, or want of opinion, cannot sustain its own citizensin the acquisition of a just renown, is deficient in one of the first andmost indispensable elements of greatness; glory, like riches, feedingitself, and being most apt to be found where its fruits have alreadyaccumulated. We see, in this fact, among other conclusions, the importanceof an acquisition of such habits of manliness of thought, as will enableus to decide on the merits and demerits of what is done among ourselves,and of shaking off that dependence on others which it is too much thecustom of some among us to dignify with the pretending title of deferenceto knowledge and taste, but which, in truth, possesses some such share oftrue modesty and diffidence, as the footman is apt to exhibit whenexulting in the renown of his master.

This little digression has induced us momentarily to overlook theincidents of the tale. Few who possess the means, venture into the stormyregions of the upper Alps, at the late season in which the present partyreached the hamlet of Martigny, without seeking the care of one or moresuitable guides. The services of these men are useful in a variety ofways, but in none more than in offering the advice which long familiaritywith the signs of the heavens, the temperature of the air, and thedirection of the winds, enables them to give. The Baron de Willading, andhis friend, immediately dispatched a messenger for a mountaineer, of thename of Pierre Dumont, who enjoyed a fair name for fidelity, and who wasbelieved to be better acquainted with all the difficulties of the ascentand descent, than any other who journeyed among the glens of that part ofthe Alps. At the present day, when hundreds ascend to the convent fromcuriosity alone, every peasant of sufficient strength and intelligencebecomes a guide, and the little community of the lower Valais finds thetransit of the idle and rich such a fruitful source of revenue, that ithas been induced to regulate the whole by very useful and just ordinances;but at the period of the tale, this Pierre was the only individual, who,by fortunate concurrences, had obtained a name among affluent foreigners,and who was at all in demand with that class of travellers. He was notlong in presenting himself in the public room of the inn--a hale, florid,muscular man of sixty, with every appearance of permanent health andvigor, but with a slight and nearly imperceptible difficulty of breathing.

"Thou art Pierre Dumont?" observed the baron, studying the openphysiognomy and well-set frame of the Valaisan, with satisfaction. "Thouhast been mentioned by more than one traveller in his book."

The stout mountaineer raised himself in pride, and endeavored toacknowledge the compliment in the manner of his well-meant but rudecourtesy; for refinement did not then extend its finesse and its deceitamong the glens of Switzerland.

"They have done me honor, Monsieur," he said: "it has been my good fortuneto cross the Col with many brave gentlemen and fair ladies--and in twoinstances with princes." (Though a sturdy republican, Pierre was notinsensible to worldly rank.) "The pious monks know me well; and they whoenter the convent are not the worse received for being my companions. Ishall be glad to lead so fair a party from our cold valley into the sunnyglens of Italy, for, if the truth must be spoken, nature has placed us onthe wrong side of the mountain for our comfort, though we have ouradvantage over those who live even in Turin and Milan, in matters ofgreater importance."

"What can be the superiority of a Valaisan over the Lombard, or thePiedmontese?" demanded the Signor Grimaldi quickly, like a man who wascurious to hear the reply. "A traveller should seek all kind of knowledge,and I take this to be a newly-discovered fact."

"Liberty, Signore! We are our own masters; we have been so since the daywhen our fathers sacked the castles of the barons, and compelled theirtyrants to become their equals. I think of this each time I reach the warmplains of Italy, and return to my cottage a more contented man, for thereflection."

"Spoken like a Swiss, though it is uttered by an ally of the cantons!"cried Melchior de Willading, heartily. "This is the spirit, Gaetano, whichsustains our mountaineers, and renders them more happy amid their frostsand rocks, than thy Genoese on his warm and glowing bay."

"The word liberty, Melchior, is more used than understood, and as muchabused as used;" returned the Signor Grimaldi gravely. "A country on whichGod hath laid his finger in displeasure as on this, needs have some suchconsolation as the phantom with which the honest Pierre appears to be sowell satisfied.--But, Signor guide, have many travellers tried the passageof late, and what dost thou think of our prospects in making the attempt?We hear gloomy tales, sometimes, of thy alpine paths in that Italy thouhold'st so cheap."

"Your pardon, noble Signore, if the frankness of a mountaineer has carriedme too far. I do not undervalue your Piedmont, because I love our Valaismore. A country may be excellent, even though another should be better. Asfor the travellers, none of note have gone up the Col of late, thoughthere have been the usual number of vagabonds and adventurers. The savorof the convent kitchen will reach the noses of these knaves here in thevalley, though we have a long twelve leagues to journey in getting fromone to the other."

The Signor Grimaldi waited until Adelheid and Christine, who werepreparing to retire for the night, were out of hearing, and he resumed hisquestions.

"Thou hast not spoken of the weather?"

"We are in one of the most uncertain and treacherous months of the goodseason, Messieurs. The winter is gathering among the upper Alps, and in amonth in which the frosts are flying about like uneasy birds that do notknow where to alight, one can hardly say whether he hath need of his cloakor not."

"San Francesco! Dost think I am dallying with thee, friend, about athickness more or less of cloth! I am hinting at avalanches and fallingrocks--at whirlwinds and tempests?"

Pierre laughed and shook his head, though he answered vaguely as becamehis business.

"These are Italian opinions of our hills, Signore," he said; "they savorof the imagination. Our pass is not as often troubled with the avalancheas some that are known, even in the melting snows. Had you looked at thepeaks from the lake, you would have seen that, the hoary glaciersexcepted, they are still all brown and naked. The snow must fall from theheavens before it can fall in the avalanche, and we are yet, I think, afew days from the true winter."

"Thy calculations are made with nicety, friend," returned the Genoese, notsorry, however, to hear the guide speak with so much apparent confidenceof the weather, "and we are obliged to thee in proportion. What of thetravellers thou hast named? Are there brigands on our path?"

"Such rogues have been known to infest the place, but, in general, thereis too little to be gained for the risk. Your rich traveller is not anevery-day sight among our rocks; and you well know Signore, that there maybe too few, as well as too many, on a path, for your freebooter."

The Italian was distrustful by habit on all such subjects, and he threw aquick suspicious glance at the guide. But the frank open countenance ofPierre removed all doubt of his honesty, to say nothing of the effect of awell-established reputation.

"But thou hast spoken of certain vagabonds who have preceded us?"

"In that particular, matters might be better;" answered the plain-mindedmountaineer, dropping his head in an attitude of meditation so naturallyexpressed as to give additional weight to his words. "Many of badappearance have certainly gone up to-day; such as a Neapolitan namedPippo, who is anything but a saint--a certain pilgrim, who will be nearerheaven at the convent than he will be at the death--St. Pierre pray for meif I do the man injustice!--and one or two more of the same brood. Thereis another that hath gone up also, post haste, and with good reason asthey say, for he hath made himself the but of all the jokers in Vévey onaccount of some foolery in the games of the Abbaye--a certain JacquesColis."

The name was repeated by several near the speaker.

"The same, Messieurs. It would seem that the Sieur Colis would fain take amaiden to wife in the public sports, and, when her birth came to be beknown, that his bride was no other than the child of Balthazar, the commonheadsman of Berne!"

A general silence betrayed the embarrassment of most of the listeners.

"And that tale hath already reached this glen," said Sigismund, in a toneso deep and firm as to cause Pierre to start, while the two old nobleslooked in another direction, feigning not to observe what was passing.

"Rumor hath a nimbler foot than a mule, young officer;" answered thehonest guide. "The tale, as you call it, will have travelled across themountains sooner than they who bore it--though I never knew how such amiracle could pass--but so it is; report goes faster than the tongue thatspreads it, and if there be a little untruth to help it along, the winditself is scarcely swifter. Honest Jacques Colis has bethought him to getthe start of his story, but, my life on it, though he is active enough ingetting away from his mockers, that he finds it, with all the additions,safely housed at the inn at Turin when he reaches that city himself."

"These, then, are all?" interrupted the Signor Grimaldi, who saw, by theheaving bosom of Sigismund, that it was time in mercy to interpose.

"Not so, Signore--there is still another and one I like less than any. Acountryman of your own, who, impudently enough, calls himself IlMaledetto."

"Maso!"

"The very same."

"Honest, courageous Maso, and his noble dog!"

"Signore, you describe the man so well in some things, that I wonder youknow so little of him in others. Maso hath not his equal on the road foractivity and courage, and the beast is second only to our mastiffs of theconvent for the same qualities; but when you speak of the master'shonesty, you speak of that for which the world gives him little credit,and do great disparagement to the brute, which is much the best of thetwo, in this respect."

"This may be true enough," rejoined the Signore Grimaldi, turninganxiously towards his companions:--"man is a strange compound of good andevil; his acts when left to natural impulses are so different from whatthey become on calculation that one can scarcely answer for a man ofMaso's temperament. We know him to be a most efficient friend, and such aman would be apt to make a very dangerous enemy! His qualities were notgiven to him by halves. And yet we have a strong circumstance in ourfavor; for he who hath once done the least service to a fellow-creaturefeels a sort of paternity in him he hath saved, and would be little likelyto rob himself of the pleasure of knowing, that there are some of his kindwho owe him a grateful recollection."

This remark was answered by Melchior de Willading in the same spirit, andthe guide, perceiving he was no longer wanted, withdrew.